


Why Lose to Regret That Which We Are Not Capable of Regretting After It Is Lost?

by InsertSthMeaningful



Category: Cyrano de Bergerac - Edmond Rostand
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Atheism, Fix-It, Fluff, Multi, Questions God, Smut, Threesome - F/M/M, bannedtogetherbingo2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:07:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25331398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertSthMeaningful/pseuds/InsertSthMeaningful
Summary: One night in Roxane's bed - after the war, from which they have all emerged unscathed - Cyrano starts to heckle his two lovers with a nice little discussion about the existence (or non-existence) of God and the after-life.Roxane's duenna provides the three of them with a small intermission - and Christian in particular with a chance to get back at Cyrano.
Relationships: Cyrano de Bergerac/Christian de Neuvillette/Roxane
Comments: 13
Kudos: 19
Collections: Banned Banned Together Bingo 2020, Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Why Lose to Regret That Which We Are Not Capable of Regretting After It Is Lost?

**Author's Note:**

> My fill for the BannedTogetherBingo2020’s prompt of “Questions God” (Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac would have loved this bingo btw). 
> 
> This is based both on Martin Crimp’s English adaption of the play (Playhouse Theatre in London, performed in the winter of 2019/2020) and Edmond Rostand’s original, untranslated work, so bear with my wonky characterisation. Also, I wrote this while camping in France. Don’t expect more than some pseudo-philosophic one-liners and horny-but-unspectacular smut from this.
> 
> Also many thanks to my lovely beta [Lynds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynds) 💙

_La petite mort; noun; French; lit. the little death; More widely, it can refer to the spiritual release that comes with orgasm or to a short period of melancholy_ _or transcendence as_ _a result of the expenditure of the "life force" -_ _Wikipedia_

⚜ 

Roxane’s bedroom is a small, self-contained paradise.

The shine of the full moon washes through the open windows, casting everything in a silver glare. A slight, candid breeze curves the curtains, brings the sweet scent of the orange trees in the garden and the wisteria clusters blooming on the pergola across the street. Roxane’s arms are a heavy warmth, and Christian’s steady heartbeat a reliable metronome.

In Cyrano’s opinion, it is all far too peaceful.

“I don’t think I believe in God,” he says.

This ought to shake his lovers from their after-sex lethargy.

Roxane is the first to react. “You fool,” she growls at him, in a voice that tells him she means it, “why do you always have to swim on against the stream?”

Straightening up against the artfully carved headboard, she truly is a sight to behold: Midnight skin bathed in afterglow, raven hair shimmering like a starry moonless night. Her eyes are those of a lioness.

Cyrano smiles invitingly at her and tilts his chin up.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it as well,” he says, ear still pressed against Christian’s beating heart where he is resting his head against the other man’s chest, smooth like marble. “The great beyond. What comes after. _Le Paradis_.” [1]

The last word he pronounces with just a tinge of mild disgust – which he knows will irk Roxane.

As expected, it does. “Of course, I have!” she exclaims, outraged. “Whoever hasn’t?”

Before she can elaborate any further, Christian’s calm, quiet voice cuts through their tension.

“I never really did,” he professes, one hand snaking down to rest on the curve of Cyrano’s head. Seeking to ground himself. “Until Arras, I think. And I know I had it clear then, I knew with certainty – but before I could grasp the meaning of it, the doctors brought me back. Now… I don’t know.”

Another temporary silence descends upon them. Only this time, its cause is much less serene.

There is the sound of Roxane touching her lips to Christian’s temple, his hair, his mouth. Cyrano contents himself with nudging his nose – his god-damn grand nose, which can go fuck itself because in spite all its provoking grandeur, he has won the love of his life _double –_ against Christian’s almost bare chest, just below where the scar tissue of his musket bullet wound forms a star on his skin and still doesn’t take away from his ethereal beauty.

One inch to the left, and Christian de Neuvillette’s bed for the night would not be the soft linen and silk of Roxane, but the clammy soil of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais.

“Well,” Cyrano finally finds the courage to prompt anew – his own far less aggravating battle wound aching in symphonic sympathy – “the after-life, then. I find myself disinclined to believe that without God, there could even be one.”

Roxane’s turn. As a _précieuse_ , love and other tender emotions are rather more in her field of expertise than death, but she never was one to leave the thinking to the men. Not even as a little girl. [2]

“Why should we dedicate our entire life,” she says, “to doing good unto each other, if we won’t be rewarded with Paradise? There would be no sense in charity or praying were we never to be sorted into Heaven and Hell.”

Now, she has basically served him an argument on a silver platter.

“See, this is my point. Isn’t life so much more agreeable and lovely if we are all civil to each other _regardless_ of the nebulous reward of Paradise? Isn’t it a life worth living, _more_ worth living than one of war, of hate and oppression?” He grins at his lovers’ resigned nods. “And religion – God, Yahweh, Allah, whatever they have going on in India and other parts of the world, these ominous, omnipotent figures watching us like children who could misbehave any moment – isn’t it all just an invention to keep us in line? I say that humanity will only ever reach its societal climax when all beliefs can be abolished – because we no longer need to keep their rules of human decency which by then will be followed without having to be written out like the ten commandments. And therefore, I concede that God is nothing but a temporary necessity.”

Roxane gasps. Christian grunts and shifts, his movements pushing Cyrano to sit up or get his head crushed between the other man’s chest and belly.

“This is blasphemy,” says Roxane, lips pressed into a thin line. “Heresy. Hubris. Don’t you ever let this loose outside of this room.”

Christian nods, quickly. Of course, he would agree with Roxane.

Intent on mocking them, Cyrano coos, “Are you afraid for my well-being, fair lady? Do you fear that if I ever utter too loud a word about God not being the one we think he is, the Cardinal’s men will barge into my room, tear me from my bed to lock me up and throw away the key? It’s not like they wouldn’t already do the same if they knew about me corrupting your two pure souls.”

Christian crosses his legs beneath the covers, evidently uncomfortable, his hair still plastered to his forehead with their earlier sweat-inducing activities. There is a small, guilty pinch to his lips. Between the three of them, he is the only one whose insecurities about their arrangement haven’t fully dwindled yet.

Roxane, however, smirks. " _Pure_ souls? My dear Cyrano, you hold yourself too high. Then tell me, why would God let it happen that we three, who love each other so dearly and truly, would be separated by the simple-mindedness of this self-obsessed De Guiche?”

“ _Because_ ,” Cyrano purrs, “He doesn’t _exist_.”

Roxane is about to come for his throat, he can see it.

But then, there are steps on the stairs – still faint, but drawing closer by the minute.

“Under the bed,” Roxane hisses at no one in particular. “ _V_ _ite, vite_!” [3]

Cyrano decides her exclamation to be aimed at him. After all, Christian and Roxane are the ones who are married. Far more legal to catch the two of them in bed than to find him there as a third party.

But as he scrambles off the mattress and under the heavy wooden bedframe, he feels another body’s heat sliding onto the polished terracotta floor after him. It is Christian, his lithe chest pressed up tightly against Cyrano’s spine.

“What are you doing, you fool?” Cyrano whisper-yells – from above, Roxane tells them, “ _Chut_!” –, but before he can press for an answer, the footsteps reach the entrance to Roxane’s bedroom and come to a halt. [4]

When the door swings open, it is Roxane’s duenna who pokes her head in. Cyrano can see her slippers of embroidered silk peeking out from under her nightgown.

Behind him, Christian places a hand on his hip, light as a feather.

“Good evening, dear,” addresses Roxane her closest confidante and watchdog, her tone the perfect picture of innocence. But Cyrano knows – and he knows Christian knows, too – that her eyes must be sparking with treacherous, inconvenienced anger.

“Good evening,” answers the duenna. “I thought I heard voices raised in dispute. Is all well, milady?”

They can practically hear Roxane nod begrudgingly.

Christian’s breath ghosts over Cyrano’s ear. “If there is no God,” he whispers, voice so low Cyrano has to strain his ears to catch his words, “then is there really no after-life?”

Cyrano nods. Hesitantly. Then, he replies quietly, “There must be nothing. Not even darkness. Only pleasing, pleasurable nothingness.”

Christian is quiet. Until his hand snakes further down, over Cyrano’s thigh, and he asks, “A little like la petite mort?”

“No, Christian, don’t–” hisses Cyrano – but it’s too late.

Christian’s fingers have already slid between his legs, expertly gripped his cock, and Cyrano knows he’s well and truly lost. Despite the earlier exertions of their evening, he can feel himself growing hard. Christian’s own erection digs into his right arse cheek, searing.

Above them, on the bed, Roxane is desperately trying to talk her chaperone’s ear off.

“So, the weather today was extraordinary – just right! We shall hope for the same light breeze tomorrow, shan’t we?”

“Yes, milady.” A smile in the duenna’s voice. “As shall Christian and Cyrano under your bed, I’m sure.”

Silence once more.

Cyrano can feel a flush travel all the way across his chest, up his neck and ears. He is also quite certain that Christian must be suffering the same fate because the other man’s hand has – mercifully – stilled with a quiver.

Roxane is spluttering. “I– What–”

“Well, I saw the two Messieurs climb the stairs to your room, but never descend them. And since it is rather cumbersome to exit your room over your balcony, it seemed to me they should have chosen to stay the night. Isn’t that right, Cyrano, Christian?”

Cyrano is just glad she does not bend down to seek their gaze under the bed. As it is, Christian has decided to pursue his task of taking him apart once more, and he finds himself grappling for purchase at the cool seams of the floor, biting back desperate groans and pleas.

Peppering silent kisses along Cyrano’s shoulder as he works his prick, Christian truly seems to have mastered his métier.

Roxane speaks. “Well, if you already know the reason, then why would you barge in so suddenly?”

“I only wanted to be assured that they were treating you right,” the chaperone sniffs. “And I think it is about time they crawled out from under your bed so that Cyrano may bid his goodbyes to the married couple.”

A broad hint. Broader than Montfleury’s paunch, even.

Cyrano couldn’t care less. He’s bucking in Christian’s grasp, sweat pearling between his shoulder blades.

“We, ngh, are far from decent at the moment, I’m ah– afraid, good Mademoiselle,” he breaks out between one of Christian’s strokes, “and if you want to – _Christian_ – spare yourself the view–”

“In short, he’s asking you to foutre le camp, duenna, and _now_ ,” Roxane growls, ever the fierce defender. [5]

However, only when she emphasises her point with a pillow thrown harshly in the direction of the silk slippers does her chaperone comply. The door falls closed silently, but the tap-tap-tap of her footsteps on the stone floor and her snickering can be heard for a long, long time still.

Meanwhile, Cyrano feels like he’s burning up; sweltering, simmering until nothing is left of him but cinders and a heart crystallised from all its over-flowing love. He presses back against Christian.

“Please,” he gasps, only once – but it rouses Roxane’s attention immediately, like a sleeping bloodhound.

“You two! Get up here,” she demands. “I want my part in the fun.”

Instantaneously, Christian complies, and Cyrano is left with nothing but dust bunnies and his rock-hard, aching erection keeping him company.

When he crawls out from under the bedframe, Roxane is mouthing at Christian’s neck, devouring him whole. “What was that about the after-life?” she asks Cyrano between gentle nips at Christian’s jaw, sliding a hand between her groaning husband’s thighs.

“There is none,” he replies, dazed. Christian’s hand comes to pull him down on the mattress.

“And why?”

“If there was an after-life, God would have given us sensation before we were born, before we were conceived, even. I saw the light of day, but before that, I did not exist. So, after I die, I will _cease_ to exist just as swiftly.”

“And therefore God does not exist, either?” Roxane asks, gently pushing him down onto the linen beside Christian.

“I– I can’t quite believe it,” Cyrano gasps, lets himself be manhandled when Christian hoists his legs over his shoulders. “Why would he impose such narrow rules on our life if this was the only time we truly got to exist, to enjoy all that the world has on offer, without restraint or shame? Why would he let us believe that there is always something bigger, something better to come, something because of which we waste away our lives toiling and moaning instead of savouring the now?”

“Maybe Moses never read the rules right. Maybe _we_ never read the Bible right,” Christian says, and there is such indescribable tenderness in his eyes as he smiles, insecure of his own words despite their unveiled truth, that Cyrano just has to lean up and kiss him – even though it is a hellish strain on his back.

Roxane watches them, and then, she leans in to steal Cyrano’s kiss right off Christian’s lips.

“Maybe God tells us we shall savour the moment,” she murmurs and smiles as Christian pushes inside – as all of Cyrano’s words leave him like water slipping through the cracks of a cupped hand. “Or maybe He is not here to do so. And if so, we just tell ourselves.”

Of course, Cyrano agrees. Of course, he would love to say so, maybe to add a point of his own.

But as pleasure flares in his gut, as Roxane lifts one leg over his chest and kisses Christian – again, again, again – he finds there is nothing else left to be said.

His little death – sa petite mort – is gripping him, tenderly, brutally, like an _épée_ ’s fatal blow. And God in Heaven – or no God; no Heaven – all the heartache, all the desperation, all the lies – for this one single moment, all is worth it. [6]

⚜ 

_[…]_

_Car puisque l’on ne reste, après ce grand passage,_

_Que le songe léger d’une légère image,_

_Et que le coup fatal ne fait ni mal ni bien,_

_Vivant, parce qu’on est, mort, parce qu’on est rien ;_

_Pourquoi perdre à regret la lumière reçue,_

_Qu’on ne peut regretter après qu’elle est perdue ?_

_[…]_

_[…]_

_Since of one remains, after this big crossover,_

_Only the gentle thought of a gentle image,_

_And since the fatal blow does neither bad nor good,_

_Alive, because one is, dead, because one is nothing;_

_Why lose to regret the obtained light,_

_which one can’t regret after it is lost?_

_[…]_

\- Cyrano de Bergerac’s _La Mort d’Agrippine_ (1653)

**Author's Note:**

> 1 Le Paradis : Paradise  [ return to text ]  
> 2 Précieuse : lit. precious woman; lady of higher standing who follows and partakes in a current of literature popular in the 17th century; elegance of speech, morals and demeanour are prioritised in prose, poetry and song as well as in the social circles in which the authors socialise  [ return to text ]  
> 3 Vite, vite! : Quick, quick!  [ return to text ]  
> 4 Chut! : Be quiet!  [ return to text ]  
> 5 Foutre le camp : To piss off  [ return to text ]  
> 6 Épée : Slim sword used in fencing (my translator literally gave me “épée” as English translation for “épée”, don’t blame me)  [ return to text ]
> 
> The excerpt of La Mort d'Agrippine at the end is a wonderful illustration of how the real Cyrano de Bergerac might have harboured atheist views. 
> 
> I hope you liked it! If you did, please consider leaving kudos and a comment. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, just a "+kudos" or a "loved it!" would make my day!!! It means so much to an author to see people take the time to actually type out words instead of simply hitting one (1) button, and it's a very easy way to make us writers - who dedicate so much of our free time to create content for you - happy!


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